


Compounded Continuously

by ParadoxR



Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Dogs, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 08:06:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3480653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadoxR/pseuds/ParadoxR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Such is the nature of love. Fluffity standalone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Calling the Dog

**February 1997: Base Pub, Peterson AFB**

“So, she seems nice.”

Jack doesn’t bother to look up from his menu. “The _captain_ is young, Lou.” His new 2IC is a captain for another four years, and has a lot of learning to do during it. She’s not trained for this SG stuff. Not really. Plus, she’s stubborn. And young. Way too much of both for his blood. **…** Definitely.

Lou scans their midday quasi-Irish pub. It’s too early to drink like this, but that’s never stopped them before. “How old ya think she is?”

“Twenty-eight.” By the skin of her teeth, if Jack remembers correctly. December 29, class of 1990.

Lou blinks aback theatrically. “No way.” He smirks. “You just trying to make her too young for you?”

Jack keeps rereading the appetizer page.

Lou pulls down Jack’s menu for him. “ _All_ women are twenty-nine these days, bud. You should know that by now.”

Jack jerks his menu back up and glares at the beer list. “You know, Lou, considering the captain-doctor has actively saved your ass at least once, you might consider thinking of her as a _captain_ and/or a _doctor_.”

Lou eyebrows him. “Or a Class of 1990 Gulf War aircrew?” He wasn’t really kidding; baby Capricorn’s gotta be at least 1989.

“Helicopter engineer. Injured, went back to school.” Why do they even come here? None of this food is actually Irish.

“Oh.” Or not.

“And are you gentlemen ready to order?”

“No.” Jack means to snap it at Lou’s incessant yammering, but the waitress steps back slightly. He looks up at her. “Sorry. If you could give us just a minute.”

“Of course, sir.”

‘Sir’. And here Jack thought his ‘sir’ days would be behind him.

“I do respect her, you know.” Lou fiddles with his water glass.

“Good.” Stop yammering.

“Smart. Total fighter. Great leader.” Beat. “Plus she’s totally hot.”

“ _Major._ ” Oh yeah, that was convincing. Stupid service dress skirt. She really shouldn’t wear that thing. …He really is not thinking about it that way.

“You know, I can see it now.”

Jack doesn’t bother with the bait. After ten years, he’s no longer naïve enough to believe anything will ever stop Lou from talking.

“You’re gonna live in a house.”

The major’s tone is so impressively scrupulous that Jack actually snorts. “Oh.”

“A cabin,” Lou elaborates prophetically.

Well there’s a guess. “You don’t say.”

“By a pond.”

“Uh-huh.”

“With her.”

Jack’s head snaps up of its own volition. “ _Major._ ” Yes, because that worked the last time.

Lou just laughs at him. “Come on, Jack. I was there when you met Sara. And before that Christine, and Jess.”

His jaw flexes. “You are not comparing my ex-wife to a twenty-eight-year-old Academy brownnoser with a PhD in something you even can’t pronounce.” His ex-wife. That still sounds wrong. Inevitable but…failure.

“First off, I hear that she’s an injured combat vet helicopter engineer. And second, yes. But only because you did it first.”

The colonel rolls his eyes and wills their waitress to come back. “Did I?” Yes, yes he did.

“And third, she’s gotta be twenty-nine.” Also, Lou can totally say theoretical astrophysicist.

Jack seriously considers throwing something at him.

“Hey, twenty-nine is a good age for you right now, buddy. Plus she’s clearly got a thing for you.”

Jack tries in vain to catch another waiter’s eye. “Are you still talking?” _She has a thing for me?_

“If Sara had seen you two in that briefing room, you’d be sleeping in the doghouse until the captain-doctor got married.”

“Sara didn’t have a doghouse.”

Lou smirks. “My point exactly. Sam is clearly a dog person.”

“Her cat’s name is Schrodinger.” Please don’t ask him how he knows that.

Lou is far, far too pleased that he knows that. “A closet dog person, then. And you’ll have a dog.”

Jack scrubs his temple. “Lou, that’s the first sane thing you’ve said since you stopped talking.”

“It’ll be named Barrel.” He nods authoritatively.

“ _Barrel?_ ”

“You call him Barry,” Lou explains the obvious explanation.

Jack goes back to pretending not to examine the phrase ‘she’s got a thing for you’.

The major pokes at his menu. “You wanna bet?”

“You want to _bet_  on the name of my dog?”

Lou smirks. “Don’t be silly. I’m gonna get you the dog.”

“You’re going to _get_ me the dog,” Jack repeats dumbly.

“As a wedding present.” Lou’s smirk is so palpable Jack’s fist would’ve it before it hit him. “And I’ll betcha fifty bucks.” His former boss doesn’t turn down a solid bet.

Jack looks over his menu with an impatient glare. “What, so that you can pay me at my funeral?”

He nods. “And you’ll pay me at your wedding.”

“Right.” Jack starts rereading the hard liquor section. “That makes sense.”

“Oh come on, Jack.” Lou pokes again at the laminated page. “Look at it this way: only one of those things is guaranteed to happen.”

“Out of curiosity Lou, which one of them do you think that is?”

The major ignores that with an air of mock professionalism. “We’ll take it at ten percent, compounded quarterly.”

“Make it continuously.” Jack doesn’t bother to look up at him again. “It’s safer, hanging out with you.”


	2. Just a One-Trick Pony

**Fifteen Years Later: Carter-O’Neill Residence, Washington, D.C.**

“So, Jack.” Lou pauses their hockey game and sits up melodramatically. “Compounded continuously, you now owe me three hundred sixty-four dollars and ninety-two cents.”

Sam’s brow furrows in confusion. “No, he doesn’t.”

“But…” Lou squints at her childishly. “Wait, you know the story?”

She grins smugly her new husband. “Oh, he’ll pay you, Lou.”

Jack almost shifts under her gaze, but it turns out that having Sam Carter-O’Neill curled against your side is _really_ comfortable. He props his head against the top of the couch and ignores both of their pointed looks.

“…But even as of today, it’s not three hundred and sixty-four dollars.”

Lou’s eyes move between the two of them as his jaw works. “Jack, did you _have_ to fall for a woman who’s that good at doing compound interest payments in her head?”

“Yes.” The Secretary-General doesn’t move from where he’s staring at the ceiling. Really, really comfortable. His hand snakes down to feel her wedding ring again.

Lou examines that response in mock contemplation. “Well, I guess she is kind of a one-trick pony.”

Jack nods to this, which earns his stomach a fake Serrakin elbow chop. He quirks a mild wince and another stupid smile at his new wife. “How much is it?” Has he mentioned that he’s married to Samantha Carter?

Sam puts an ear back on his chest. “Two twenty-something. Call it two thirty.”

Jack threads a hand into his jeans pocket and reaches for her wallet as well. She raises an eyebrow.

Colonel Ferretti walks up to the couple in mock impatience. Jack extricates himself from the new one-star’s torso and reaches for their wedding cash.

Lou accepts the bills with far too large a flourish.

General Carter-O’Neill reaches up and pulls back a sawbuck.

“Hey!”

She levels her husband a pointed look. He receives silence and an eyebrow. She lies back down and keeps the ten.

Jack translates this for his old friend. “I guess we’re calling the dog Earl.”


End file.
